<p>I've heard people say that one good way to demonstrate that you are a strong candidate for graduate school is to take a grad class and ace it.</p>
<p>My question is, how might it be perceived if you fall short of 'acing' the course? Will an A- or B+ in a grad course while still taking the normal undergrad courses hurt chances of PhD admissions if it lowers your GPA? I know there probably aren't many adcoms meandering about the boards, but I wonder if anyone has experience with this that they could share.</p>
<p>I really wouldn’t recommend it. It would hurt your GPA. You’re much better off taking highest level undergrad courses plus research opportunities where available. </p>
<p>You’re not expected to have done grad level class for admission. They’re looking at your potential for success. You want to give yourself the strongest preparation you can. If you jump a level, so to speak, you might not grasp the concepts as well as you might have if you’d taken a marginally easier undergrad class. No need to make things unnecessarily difficult.</p>
<p>My best physics advisees at Illinois Tech often take graduate courses and do well in them. This does help in graduate admissions and sometimes the credit is even transferable. Even if it isn’t the fact that they have taken the courses once already prepares them very well for qualifying examinations and graduate courses. However, if you do poorly, it will hurt. Be sure you can handle it and discuss it with your academic advisor.</p>
<p>Presumably you should be interested in whatever grad classes you take… If so just take it. If you do poorly maybe it’s a sign that you’re not good enough for grad school. If you do well (A) it’ll help, and an A- probably won’t hurt your chances either.</p>
<p>Here at Maryland in aerospace there are very few undergrad aero electives to fulfill graduation requirements (as in 1 aeronautic per semester and 1 astro in spring). A significant number of the seniors are taking at least one grad class to fulfill their aero elective requirement.</p>
<p>Shoot, at my undergraduate school the senior-level (400-level) classes were usually cross-listed as graduate courses. Let’s be honest, if you are cut out for graduate school you will be able to handle the classes anyway, and if you’re not, you won’t. Either you take them now to fill in schedule and find out what you’re made of or else you do it later and find out what your made of. It’s silly to say not to take them just because it may be hard. If it’s too hard you shouldn’t be going to graduate school anyway.</p>
<p>Take the ones that interest you and fit and just go have fun with it. It’s certainly not required but it’s not a bad idea either.</p>
<p>My son had quite a number of grad credits and the admission committee indicated it was definitely a factor in their decision. I’d guess you want to shoot for mostly As.
(3.5+)</p>